Abel Ferrara Fights to Stop Re-Edited Strauss-Kahn Film

“WELCOME TO NEW YORK,” Abel Ferrara’s fictionalized account of the scandal involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a Manhattan hotel maid who accused him of rape, was screened last year at the Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter called the movie, starring Gérard Depardieu as the Strauss-Kahn figure, “racy,” “uproarious” and a “rather fascinating bit of artistic self-indulgence that’s both made by, and about, self-indulgent men.”

The movie was released last summer in Britain (“a scabrous, semi-improvised cinematic art event, with a brazen streak of tabloid sensationalism,” The Guardian said), and it is scheduled for release in San Francisco and on video on demand in the United States on Friday. But that is where things become complicated. The film being shown here is not the one Mr. Ferrara made, but an alternative, watered-down version that was edited after the fact by Vincent Maraval, one of the producers, and Mr. Ferrara says he wants nothing to do with it.

“It’s an arbitrary censorship,” he said by telephone from Italy, his indignation fizzing through the telephone line. Speaking of Mr. Maraval, an influential figure in the French film world along with his company, Wild Bunch, Mr. Ferrara said: “The real crime is, Where does this guy come off trying to change my film? I’m a final-cut director. It’s a freedom-of-speech issue.”

Disputes involving directors and final cuts are not unusual; few things enrage directors more than the prospect of their visions being altered or adulterated in the editing room. Yet it happens all the time; that is why there is such a thing as a director’s cut. But Mr. Ferrara, known for gritty movies like “Bad Lieutenant” and “King of New York,” has a reputation for being passionately unyielding about creative control. His contract stipulates that he has final-cut approval. What makes this situation unusual is that the changes in the film, at least according to Mr. Ferrara, appear to change its overall tone and philosophy. “My name is on it — I’m the filmmaker,” Mr. Ferrara said of “Welcome to New York.” “The illegal version that Maraval made totally changes the political content of the film.”

Mr. Ferrara’s lawyer, Filomena Cusano, said that he was also obliged under his contract to produce an R-rated film, but that “It is our position that Wild Bunch waived this right when they accepted delivery of Abel’s director’s cut.”

In Mr. Ferrara’s version, a violent rape scene between the Depardieu character and the maid, played by Pamela Afesi, is presented as a straightforward account of events. “It’s a film about violence against and abuse of women,” Mr. Ferrara said. “There’s a big political issue here.”

The recut version is more than 15 minutes shorter than the original one, Ms. Cusano said. And in the new version, she said, the rape scene has been recast completely so that now it appears in flashback, with the maid telling the police her version of what happened in the hotel room. The scene takes place from her point of view, so it raises the question of whether the facts as she recounts them are an accurate version — watering down the pivotal reality of the movie into a “he said, she said” dispute, Ms. Cusano said.

In real life, Mr. Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, settled a civil case with his accuser in 2012.

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Abel Ferrara, the director of “Welcome to New York,” in Italy in September 2014.CreditDomenico Stinellis/Associated Press

Mr. Maraval did not respond to numerous messages left for him via email and telephone. But Jonathan Sehring, president of IFC Films, the American distributor of “Welcome to New York,” said that Wild Bunch had been contractually obliged to provide an R-rated film. Mr. Sehring said Mr. Ferrara’s original version had received an NC-17 rating from the Classification and Rating Administration, which rates films released in the United States. Mr. Ferrara was also given a list of changes that would have to be made if the movie were to secure the milder rating, Mr. Sehring said. Because Mr. Ferrara had repeatedly refused to alter the film to make it R-compliant, Mr. Sehring said, Wild Bunch had to make the changes itself, without Mr. Ferrara’s cooperation.

In an interview, Mr. Sehring emphasized that IFC’s contract was with Mr. Maraval and Wild Bunch, not with Mr. Ferrara, meaning that IFC did not have a hand in the new edit.

“When we did our deal with Vincent in 2013, it was based on a promo reel for the movie and the fact that Abel was doing it,” Mr. Sehring said. “We paid a lot for the movie, and because we paid a lot, in order to be able to exploit it to the fullest we need an R version. That was very clear. When the movie was released in the U.S., it was going to come out as an R version.”

Mr. Ferrara’s lawyer, Ms. Cusano, said that since Mr. Ferrara had final-cut approval, Wild Bunch had violated its agreement in releasing a version of the film other than the original one.

“They’ve been pressuring him to make changes to the movie since before the Cannes Film Festival in 2014,” she said in an interview. “He had several requests to make changes to the movie, which he did not agree with.”

Ms. Cusano said that she had seen both versions of the movie and that she questioned the rationale behind the changes. “A lot of explicit scenes have remained in the movie,” she continued. Rather than toning down the sex, she said, the changes seemed to be trying “somehow to soften or make it less clear what Abel’s interpretation is,” she said.

She added: “I would challenge them to demonstrate that the changes they made were for the purpose of achieving an R rating. My view is that that is absolutely not the case.”

Ms. Cusano said she had sent a cease-and-desist letter to IFC, followed by a letter requesting that Mr. Ferrara’s name be removed from the movie, but had heard nothing back. Mr. Sehring said that IFC had not received either letter.

He said the company was poised to go ahead with its plans on Friday, for a limited theatrical release as well as a multiplatform digital release. “These all require R ratings,” he said.

So that leaves Mr. Ferrara in Italy, fuming. “They knew who they were dealing with,” Ms. Cusano said. “This is a director you engage to direct a movie because you want his movie, and you know he feels very strongly about it.”